Schoolboys fight BT

Three teenage schoolboys from the UK are going head-to-head with one of the world's most powerful companies after launching an on-line petition designed to end the practice of metered charging for phone calls. Matthew Day, Alex Dean and Dominic Drane -- all from Swindon in Wiltshire -- have set up the Web site to lobby BT and the telecomms watchdog OFTEL to introduce unmetered call charges to help reduce the cost of Net access in the UK. "BT are the most successful telecommunications company in Europe, making more profit than any other company," they write in the preface to the petition. "They owe it to us, their loyal customers, to give us this small piece of gratitude. "Only one thinkg (sic) stops them," it continues. "The government inaugurated 'Offtell' (sic) are here, giving us all a hard time." Speaking to The Register from a bedroom somewhere in Swindon after he'd finished school for the day, Alex Dean said that more than 300 signatures had already been gathered from like-minded Net users. "We hope to hand in the petition to BT and OFTEL when we get enough signatures," he said. ®